Feeding the Flyways

Native Alaskans living within and near the Yukon Flats are primarily Gwich'in Athabascan Indians. Seven villages lie within or adjacent to the boundary of Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge. Local residents have a long history of harvesting the region's natural resources for subsistence purposes. Athabascans follow patterns of harvest that reflect the seasonal cycle of resources and continue to hunt, fish, trap, pick berries, and cut house logs on the refuge.

During the late 1950s, a major hydroelectric dam project was proposed for the Yukon River at Rampart Canyon, 200 miles downriver from the refuge. That dam, if constructed, would have flooded the entire Yukon Flats and the villages within it, creating a lake larger than Lake Erie. Environmental organizations, hunters, Alaska Native groups, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took a firm stand against this proposed project. In order to illustrate the importance of the Yukon Flats to national waterfowl populations, biologists conducted extensive waterfowl banding efforts. The results of these efforts showed that birds breeding on the Yukon Flats overwintered throughout the entire United States, supplementing each of the four North American flyways. The final report stated that “Nowhere in the history of water development in North America have the fish and wildlife losses anticipated to result from a single project been so overwhelming.” As a result, official protection of the Yukon Flats by the federal government began in 1978 with the designation of the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Monument.

Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge is a remote 8.63 million acre landscape dominated by a vast wetland complex nestled between the White and Brooks Mountain Ranges in Interior Alaska. Bisected by the Yukon River and dotted with more than 30,000 lakes, ponds, and streams, the Refuge provides essential breeding habitat for millions of waterfowl.

At first glance, an urban refuge in California and a remote refuge in Alaska don’t seem to have much in common. Take a closer look and the connections abound. The striking and regal Canvasback is the largest diving duck in North America. It’s also the primary species that connects Yukon Flats Refuge in Alaska to San Pablo Bay Refuge in California – both physically and through each Refuge’s establishing legislation. In the 1950s and 60s, biologists banded thousands of ducks on what is now the Yukon Flats Refuge. Of these banded ducks, 313 canvasbacks were recovered – and 89 of them came from the San Francisco Bay area. So when refuge staff at Yukon Flats sought to establish a “Sister Refuge” relationship with a Lower 48 Refuge, they followed the canvasbacks to San Pablo Bay Refuge in San Francisco’s North Bay.